was afraid in her own house. The way her room looked. She had tried so hard to make her bedroom look clean and normal, like a normal girl. But it had been impossible. The look and smell of her room and the entire house was just bad. Just that vibe that the people who lived there weren’t good people.
I hated that she grew up there.
I hated it even more that I couldn’t do anything for her then. My home life was just as bad, if not worse. Those pieces of the puzzle I left out of my story were big ones. Pieces that defined me. Pieces that stuck with me. Pieces that left me writing that letter to Delilah that I lost. The words she’d never see. The words I should have never written. I should have written a letter to someone else. Or just kept my words to myself.
I looked at Amelia as she slept and gritted my teeth.
That was the bigger problem… all the words.
And all the words floated through my head all night.
Being in Amelia’s presence was soothing. But it was a dangerous soothing.
My eyes shut and opened over and over until the sun came up. The first sign of light creeping through the windows, I crept out of the bed and went to make Amelia coffee. She started to stir, so I put a hand to her shoulder.
“Sleep, love,” I whispered. “I want to bring you coffee in bed.”
She let out a purring sound and grinned. That half smile while she was half asleep was deadly for me.
I growled under my breath.
A second later and I wouldn’t have gotten out of the bed at all.
I walked across the hard floors and caught the reflection of myself in the window.
It was a new record for me.
A woman spent the night, and nothing happened. I was making her coffee instead of making plans for her to leave.
Better yet, I didn’t want her to leave.
I didn’t want to look at the clock and think about time or what needed to get done for the day. I wanted to turn the world off and just be with Amelia. Tell her everything else she didn’t know. Touch every strand of hair and every inch of her body. And when the words ran out, there was plenty more I would tell her with my mouth that didn’t require words.
As I stared at the coffeemaker spitting coffee into the pot, my hands curled tight against the counter.
I looked over my shoulder and saw the outline of Amelia’s body wrapped up in my blankets.
Wanting to stay this morning was one thing. That I could handle.
What I couldn’t handle was what raced through my mind.
Amelia was the kind of woman worth loving.
Chapter 25
The Sound You Don’t Hear
NOW
(Amelia)
His bed was tucked into a corner and it was instantly my new favorite spot in the world. To just sit there under the warm blankets holding a warm cup of coffee, that was pretty good. But to have Josh sitting on the edge of the bed, turned so he could look at me, a look in his eyes that made my heart forget how to properly beat… I wasn’t sure if that was heaven or hell.
I mean, it felt like heaven. But any time near Josh had the appeal of hell.
I sipped the coffee and stared back at him.
The silence was intense.
I was sure Josh wasn’t the type to share his bed just for sleeping. And it wasn’t as though my body wasn’t aching in a way that made my cheeks feel flush. I had always wondered about him. What he was like in bed. What it was like. What it felt like. What he could do and how he would do it.
Maybe there was a little sting of regret to match the slight headache from the whiskey the night before. I’d be the one who would end up not sleeping with a guy like Josh because I drank whiskey. Rather than let my guard down and trust my body and its needs, I completely put my guard up.
Then again… it was morning. We were sober. The coffee was good. And we had nothing but time.
“What’s your day look like?” he asked me.
His sleepy morning voice was an instant turn on.
“The only thing on my schedule is a shower.”
“You can do that here if you’d like,” he said.
“No,” I said. “I don’t want to be in your way.”
“You? Naked. In my shower. That’s not going to be in